A telephone service commonly known as “Caller ID” allows a person who is receiving a telephone call to determine the calling party before the call is answered. Caller ID is available on landline phones and fairly standard for cellular phones. Caller ID involves the calling telephone device to transmit or otherwise have made available information, such as the phone number of the calling device, the name of the calling party, etc. The receiving telephone can use the information to determine whether to block the call, allow the call to go through, or to display the information on a display at the receiving telephone.
The receiving telephone, particularly in the cellular arena, has many options of what to do with Caller ID information. For example, it may associate the Caller ID with names or nicknames from an address book to be displayed, associate different ringtones or ring-back tones, associate pictures or photos to be displayed, etc.
The calling telephone device typically has fewer options available. For example, the only option the caller may have is to block the transmission of its Caller ID information resulting in “unknown” to be displayed at the receiving telephone.
Typically, when caller initiates the phone call to the receiver, the receiver does not have any idea about the caller's need intention or the urgency of the call. The receiver can only see who is calling. Based on the receiver's condition (busy/not busy) the receiver makes a judgment call as to whether or not to answer the incoming call immediately. At times, if the caller is in real need, perhaps due to an urgent need or emergency situation, for example, there is no way to communicate that context to the receiver unless the call is answered. The caller may have to resort to frantic calling to convey the urgency. In other scenarios, where receiver is not able to see the incoming call, the call logs (missed calls) do not indicate the call priority either. It is again left to the receiver to judge and decide whether to return the call later or not. Voice mail can provide some relief here, but voice mail needs to be accessed and listened to and often people do not take the time to check voicemail.